BU falls at Navy: The recap

Navy, a team coming of a 3-26 season, seemed like an opportunity for the Bearcats to get into the win column and start feeling good about the new era the program is starting under coach Tommy Dempsey.

However, the Bearcats made too many mistakes and too far behind at the half to bounce back.

TURNING POINT: There were really two key stretches for the Bearcats. Navy went on a 15-2 run at the end of the first half, turning a two-point Bearcats lead into an 11-point advantage for the home squad. Five Bearcats turnovers helped propel Navy during that run.

The next pivotal stretch came when the Bearcats chipped away at the lead and shaved it down to five points, 50-45, with 10:47 remaining. The Bearcats did not score again for more than four minutes, and they missed six consecutive free throws in that period.

“We had battled back to get it, I think it was five or so,” BU coach Tommy Dempsey said. “We just kept getting to the line and getting to the line. I thought we had a lot of opportunities there to close the gap or maybe even tie the game or get it down to a one-possession game. When we missed the (six) in a row, that really took a lot of wind out of our sails.”

YOU MIGHT WANT TO GUARD Tilman Dunbar: Navy freshman point guard Tilman Dunbar went 5-for-10 from the floor and 6-for-10 from the free throw line. He scored 16 points and dished out 11 assists while committing just one turnover.

“I knew I could get by my defender,” Dunbar said. “I really wasn’t worried about that. I was worried about drawing the second defender and finding my teammates open on the weakside of under the basket. That’s pretty much what I was trying to get accomplished every time I went to the basket.”

His 11 assists tied a Navy freshman record for assists in a game.

“I think we got too extended because we were coming from behind most of the night,” Dempsey said of the team’s defense on Dunbar. “You can play it a little different, but once you get down sometimes you have to really try to get after them. He’s a hard guy to really get after. We probably extended our defense too much against him which allowed him to get into the lane. Part of that was because we were playing from behind.”

IS STAT SO: The Navy defense had held opponents to 33 percent shooting through the first two games of the season, and the Bearcats shot, yup, 33 percent on Wednesday night. Navy’s free throw defense was also pretty good. The Bearcats shot just 18 of 32 at the free throw line.

A bonus stat: The victory was the 1,300th all-time for Navy, which is in its 106th season of basketball.

TRYING TO FIND A MIX: All twelve players who went on the trip for the Bearcats played. Dempsey used a different starting lineup than in the first two games. This time he started both Alex Ogundadegbe and Jordan Reed for the first time. Eleven Bearcats played in the first half as Dempsey tried different combinations.